Public Broadcasting Chiefs Roll With The Punches…Sometimes Out The Door

Michael Hedges January 30, 2012 Follow on Twitter

Corporation boards, however they are constituted, always have a succession plan. Nobody wants confusion about when the CEO leaves the stage, so to speak. Public broadcasters are generally quite orderly about tenures and terms, except when they’re not.

Change at the top will come to the BBC as “signals” went out that Director General Mark Thompson will exit sometime between the end of the London Olympic Games and the end of the year, or maybe a bit later. The BBC Trust retained a headhunter to sort through the CVs and fend off rogue applicants. The next BBC Director General, said BBC Trust Chairman Chris Patton at the Oxford Media Convention (January 23), will make substantially less than Thompson’s GBP 670,000 (about €800,000) annual salary. Presumably duties will remain the same.

Eight or nine years is about average tenure for a BBC director general dating back to the institutions founding by Sir John Reith in 1927. Thompson is a BBC TV lifer, first joining the corporation as a production trainee in 1979. There was that brief foray as Channel 4 CEO before receiving the call to return to Auntie. That came after popular Director General Greg “cut the crap” Dyke resigned in the political cross-hairs for the BBC’s reporting on the run-up to the Iraq War. Thompson was a logical choice. He’ll mostly be remembered for downsizing the BBC.

Notwithstanding the BBC’s unique position – size and style – as a public broadcaster, its leadership is chosen like many others. German public broadcasting, richer and more complex than the BBC, mixes broadcasting lifers with political appointees.

With just now a year as head of Bayerischen Rundfunk (Bavarian Broadcasting – BR) Ulrich Wilhelm worked as a journalist and producer at BR early in his career before moving on to politics as Bavarian State and, later, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesperson. Previous BR general director Thomas Gruber left, at retirement age, after nine years in the top job with several months remaining on his contract. Gruber worked at BR for thirty years.

Hessischen Rundfunk (hr) director general Helmut Reitz has held to top job since 2003. He’s a broadcasting lifer, coming up through the ranks of radio and TV journalism. Individual German public broadcasting councils normally select directors-general for five-year terms allowing one renewal. An exception was Mitteldeutschen Rundfunk (MDR) director general Udo Reiter, who held the top job since MDR was founded in 1991. Amidst a bit of a scandal at MDR over a children’s channels and dodgy invoices, Reiter retired and MDR legal director Karola Wille was named to the top job.

When rules in Spain changed (2006) giving political parties naming rights to RTVE’s top job, the consensus candidate was Luis Fernandez, highly experienced in commercial broadcasting. He quit after three years into a five-year contract, relocating to Miami as president of Univision Studios. With days, the government appointed former Spanish Defense Minister Alberto Oliart, who arrived with lots of legal and government experience and none in broadcasting. Oliart resigned after two years when questions were raised about a certain contract given to a company solely operated by his son. The RTVE board changed the rules again (2011) and allocated administrative duties to itself naming board member and former RTE CFO Manuel Esteve as the first rotating chief executive. The RTVE board has eleven members so that works out fairly well and probably saves a lot of money. Draft changes to the current Audiovisual Communications Act, reported by El Pais (January 19), would save more money by allowing third-party outsourcing of news and information on Spanish public radio and television. Other proposals include privatizing RTVE regional channels.

When French President Nicolas Sarkozy named Rémy Pflimin president and general director of France Télévisions in 2010 there was, as usual, a lot of waving of the arms among the troops. M.Pflimin came with limited television experience, having previously owned a newspaper kiosk business. But his uncle Pierre was a famous French politician, his cousin Stephen had been president of Crédit Mutuel and his brother Bertrand-Louis was a famous French army general. M. Pflimin replaced Patrick de Carolis, who had served five years regularly battling President Sarkozy’s plans to reorganize French public broadcasting. “When we say that there is no difference between public television and private television, I find it wrong, I think it's stupid, and I find it deeply unfair,” he said shortly before being shown the door.

The most prolific employer of public broadcasting presidents or directors-general is Polish public television TVP. The current president, Juliusz Braun, has been in the job almost a year, something of a record. A career politician, Mr. Braun had earlier been head of media regulator KRRiT. He succeeded Romuald Orzel, who held the job for three days in 2011. But Mr. Orzel had been TVP president previously, from December 2009 until August 2010. He came with newspaper experience.

Boguslaw Piwowar came to the TVP presidency with a few years public broadcasting background. His presidency lasted three months, from December 2010 through February 2011. Mr. Piwowar succeeded the late Wlodzimierz Lawniczak, who was appointed in August 2010 only to resign for health reasons in December.  That brings us back to Mr. Orzel first nine month term, which succeeded Tomasz Szatkowski, who held the job for about six weeks in late 2009. Mr. Szatkowski succeeded Boguslaw Szwedo, who lasted about ten weeks.

The TVP supervisory board, all political appointees, chooses – and fires – TVP presidents. Preceding Mr. Szwedo was Piotr Farfal who wouldn’t let the board members enter the TVP building when they came around to fire him. The controversial Mr. Farfal lasted nine months. As testament to the hard-working, loyal TVP staff Polish public television has remained competitive throughout.

Heads of public television in Scandinavia tend to keep their jobs to term. Swedish public television (SVT) CEO Eva Hamilton was appointed in 2006. First a newspaper and television reporter Ms Hamilton had been head of news for SVT. Also a public television lifer, Hans-Tore Bjerkaas, Director-General of Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, has held that job since 2007. Lauri Kivinen has been CEO of Finland’s public broadcaster YLE since May 2010. He came from Nokia, momentarily controversial, and succeeded Mikael Jungner, whose five-year contract was not renewed.

Slightly more volatile has been Danish public broadcaster DR. Kenneth Plummer took over as director general in 2005 after previous DG Christian Nissen was fired by the DR board after ten years of service. Plummer then resigned under a dark cloud in 2010 when it was revealed he had, perhaps, bribed a biographer by providing sensitive confidential information. Maria Rørbye Rønn was named acting DG following Mr. Plummer’s resignation and was elevated to DG three months later.

Trading bosses between public and private, commercial broadcasters is rare, cultures and job descriptions being quite different. The board of Czech public television chose former Nova TV president Petr Dvorak as director-general in late 2011, replacing Jiri Janecek who retired after seven years citing health reasons. Dvorak separated from top rated Nova TV and Central European Media Enterprises (CME) after ten years in top management and strategic disagreements with CEO Adrian Sârbu.

The most notable career moves from public to private television is that of RTL Group CEO Gerhard Zeiler who moved back and forth between Austrian public broadcaster ORF and private television companies in Germany. He rose to ORF General Director in 1994, staying for four years before moving to RTL. About the same time Zeiler’s contract with RTL Group was spontaneously extended until 2015, the ORF Trustees were in deep contemplation over renewal of General Director Alexander Wrabetz’s contract leading to some speculation, and maybe wishful thinking, that Zeiler might return to Vienna. When asked about his plans after RTL Group, Zeiler has always left every door open.

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